Virginia Beach Agriculture Advisory Commission

BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE COURTHOUSE – The Agriculture Advisory Commission will consider whether activities such as craft beer or wine sales or assembly uses, such as holding weddings, are appropriate on farmland, including properties enrolled in the city’s agricultural reserve program,… Continue Reading →

BY JANE BLOODWORTH ROWE PUNGO — This year’s growing season got off to a soggy start with heavy rains that damaged the strawberry crops and delayed planting for both grain and produce farmers. May’s hot, rainy weather damaged some strawberries,… Continue Reading →

BY WILL HARRIS OCEANFRONT — Call it a green carpet event. The paparazzi may not have been swarming around the Virginia Beach Convention Center on Thursday, March 22, but for the city’s agriculture community, the event going on within its walls… Continue Reading →

BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE COURTHOUSE — The Virginia Beach Agriculture Advisory Commission on Friday, April 13, voted to recommend that the City Council maintain the agricultural reserve program while supplying some money for a project to address flooding in Ashville Park… Continue Reading →

BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE COURTHOUSE – Agriculture in Virginia Beach had an estimated $124.6 million economic impact in 2016, an increase of $3.8 million or 3.1 percent from the previous year, according to the local cooperative extension office. The estimate from… Continue Reading →

BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE PUNGO — Jane Bloodworth Rowe wrote a story in a recent paper about the Morris family, who earned the 2016 Excellence in Agriculture Award for generations of work. And coverage of the banquet this past month appeared in… Continue Reading →

BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE COURTHOUSE – Virginia Beach may consider whether the agricultural reserve program, which preserves farmland by purchasing development rights, can be used to address drainage issues in the transition area between the city’s suburban north and rural south. … Continue Reading →

THE INDEPENDENT NEWS COURTHOUSE – Virginia Beach will impose a ceiling upon land use tax values for agricultural land of either $1,800 per acre or a commodity-determined value, if it is lower than that sum. The value that determines taxes… Continue Reading →

BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE COURTHOUSE — The details of the proposed city spending plan have been reported over the past weeks, and officials have touted a key headline after last year’s contentious process. “No tax hike — none,” said Catheryn Whitesell, director… Continue Reading →